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I've been toying with the idea of creating a non-profit "social-responsibility" fund. A startup at inception would donate some fixed percentage of their stock t
by DenisM 12y ago
I've been toying with the idea of creating a non-profit "social-responsibility" fund. A startup at inception would donate some fixed percentage of their stock to the fund, and the fund will later use dividends or sales proceeds to pay for retraining or retirement of those displaced by the startup.
The trouble is, the idea being so novel, I don't think I could convince any investors to get on board with it. It requires broad awareness and years of propaganda to make it a commonly accepted practice.
Alternatively, I imagine the disrupted themselves should have a pension fund or a trade union seeking out disruptive innovations and investing in them ahead of time. But in practice they don't, so that where it ends.
- k_kelly 12y agoDisruption typically happens where it's not only more efficient but cheaper too. The number of people you displace is going to be a fraction of what you make. If you do end up making as much as the original industry it's because you are doing MORE than the original industry in which case you now have to question if the original industry didn't deserve to be destroyed. Everything that can be software, will be software, what needs to happen is that the number of things that are software needs to outnumber the things that exist now. Software will create work for people to do as long as it keeps pushing what we can do as people. People need to adapt to a world with software at the heart, everything else is very dangerous.
- dllthomas 12y agoIt would have to work like insurance. Lots of companies with a chance of large scale disruption pitch in funds, applied in the rare cases where large scale disruption happens.
- DenisM 12y agoRetraining is one-time event, it doesn't require equal cash flow, just that there is some cash set aside for it. I don't advocate permanent welfare, except maybe for those who are past retirement age.
- prostoalex 12y agoHow would you certify the eligibility of someone being displaced? Having no direct application of my superb oats carrying and stable attendance skills, can I be compensated by the horseless carriage companies that put horse stations out of business? A bunch of the skills displaced are so trivial (sales clerk? taxi dispatcher? a person to look up airline tickets and report back what the prices are?) that anybody can (and will) claim complete mastery of those skills and excruciating unemployment caused by your startup.
- DenisM 12y agoI don't have a good answer. there are many problems with this idea, this being one of the. Conceivably, someone who held employment in a disrupted profession for 10 years could qualify. Alternately, retraining could be open to anyone who comes in, if not too many people come in practice there is no need to keep the doors closed. Like I said, I don't have a good answer.
- prostoalex 12y agoSeems like the focus should be on lowering the cost and increasing accessibility of retraining programs. When it's nearly free and available to anybody in need, motivated individuals will take care of themselves, and you just need to take care of smaller remnant group and address their specific issues.
- rndn 12y agoWhy do you think the revolution will come from startups rather than from tech giants such as Google and Amazon?
- DenisM 12y agoWell, I'm running a startup, so im thinking what I can do. I can't change what Google does.